Chapter 2 Before the closed gates of Iligh

In Chapter 2 the text writer of the graphic story, Bert Hogervorst takes center stage. Three times when visiting Iligh she stood in front of closed gates. Coming upon Iligh by chance for the first time she was struck by its imposing, exotic architecture standing seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The casbah's of Iligh were like no other casbahs. It reminded her of pictures she had seen of sub-saharan buildings. Back in Holland she started an internet search. The first thing she discovered was that in the South of Morocco along the edges of the Sahara desert there were ancient Jewish settlements. Turns out the Jews played a crucial role in the Trans Saharan trade. The oldest settlement was in Ifrane (Atlas Saghir). From there the Jews had spread and brought prosperity to the region. It seemed that the rise of Iligh as a karavanserai, goods depot and trading post in the first half of the 17th century coincided with a particularly cruel episode in the history of the Jewish people of Ifrane known as the Mass Suicide when a ruthless ruler forced Jews into killing themselves and each other. From 1620 till 1968 when the last Rabbi left the place, the fate of the Jewish community and that of the family of the 'Maison d'Iligh' was tightly connected. At the end of the 19th century Iligh boasted the largest Jewish population of any place in the South of Morocco. The drawing is of Bert in the Jewish cemetery of Ifrane while on a reconnaissance of Jewish settlements in southern Morocco. Will the gates of Iligh finally open for her and what will she discover once inside?